A Night with Roxanne
by readergrl56
Summary: The world of prostitution consists of dark street corners, the backseats of cars, and dirty hotel rooms. This is her world. Ino X Shikamaru. AU
1. Strangers

Well, I feel bad about not writing a new story for a while. I have to get in the writing mood which, thankfully, I got in about a week ago. However, I had to work on a science paper, a large application, and an enlgish paper. Biggest was the english paper which, had I flunked it, would have cause me to flunk the the quarter and, therefore, the entire year. So, you know, priorities. Anyways, yay for spring break! The story was kind of inspired by the song "Roxanne," hence the title. I use the Moulin Rouge version (entitled "El Tango de Roxanne". If you haven`t figured it out already, its a tango) because it was the first version I heard and I like it better than the police version.

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Author's Note: After I wrote this, some revisions came about. I have removed the quote from "El Tango de Roxanne" and the story is now name "A Night with Roxanne." Enjoy!_

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He was the strangest client that she had ever seen. There had been some pretty strange ones, too. Every girl in her line of work got them. The most preferable for her were the masochistic ones. The whole dominatrix act worked wonders in relieving some of the frustrations of the job. It didn't hurt (she smiled to herself at the pun) either that it made her feel like she was getting revenge on every single person who had hurt her in some way. Oh no, none of the clients had ever physically harmed her or, if they had, it wasn't tolerated for long. Sadism or any type of violence towards anyone of the girls was not allowed and dealt harshly with by "Father". It was not out of love, purely business. No one wanted to buy a battered up sex doll.

The fetish-loving ones gave her the creeps. It was a common game among the girls to see who had gotten the weirdest fetish thrown at them. Sakura was currently the victor with a client who had wanted her to suck on the fleshiest part of his bald head. No matter how many jests were made about them, though, she was still highly uncomfortable with sucking on someone's toe to get them to moan or nibbling on a man's ear for ten minutes. What ever happened to making love to one another then cuddling afterwards? She had read about it in those dime-store romance novels when she was a starry-eyed youngster. Then again, none of those books had a heroine become a teenage prostitute. None of _those_ girls had to spend years going from street corner to street corner, from car to car, from dirty motel to dirty motel building up a list of clients that varied just as much as it stayed the same. Young, old fat, skinny, rich, poor, they were all men who liked her for one thing and one thing only-sex.

The man before her was different. Very different. The first thing that had struck her about him was that he was young. Just about her age, in fact. She really didn't get many young clients. Most people her age, she assumed, would be bumping and grinding up against each other in some club somewhere. Then, they would drunkenly stumble into a taxi with a person made exceedingly attractive by alcohol and get their sex for the part-time job friendly price of nothing but a hangover and some regrets. Those who couldn't pick up strangers in a hot, loud nightclub were always left with the option of a tube sock and the internet.

The few young clients that she did get could be placed into two different categories of men. The first group would be those smarmy college frat boys who were only with her to brag to their buddies the next morning about getting laid by a really hot chick. No mention that the chick had been a prostitute would ever be made. The other grouping of young clients were those clients who she actually had some compassion for. They were the high school age kids who saved up the money they got from flipping hamburgers just so they didn't have to be the last virgins in school. She usually sent these boys home, money still in hand, with the promise that someday a girl would be willing to take their virginity without having to be paid for doing so. She always got reprimanded harshly by "Father" for sending away money, but she didn't mind as long as she never saw those boys on her street again.

The other strange thing was that he actually took care of her. Most clients wouldn't care if she was freezing cold or hadn't eaten in a week. Just as long as they got their sex and were satisfied, they were happy. _He_, however, always asked her if she was thirsty when they entered the hotel room and, on several occasions, ordered room service for her after scrutinizing her body. That was the other thing; he took her to hotels that actually offered room service. Usually, she was dragged to some disgusting hotel where they shared the room with various stains on the linens and insects that liked to crawl into the folds of her clothing on the floor. Some clients wouldn't even spring for a room and she had to learn to navigate her body around seatbelts and the cracks between seats. She had gotten enough burns from rubbing against rough cotton seats or from pulling her hot, sweaty skin away from leather too quickly to last a lifetime.

The weirdest thing about him, however, was the thing that she couldn't, for the life of her, figure out. She had never seen it before in all of her years on the streets. The thing was that, even though he paid for it, he didn't want to have sex with her. In fact, he hadn't even tried anything remotely intimate like kiss her or touch her body in anyway. She would think he wasn't attracted to her, except she knew it wasn't the case. Attractiveness was kind of a major part of the job description unless you were one of those foreign girls a few blocks over who weren't very pleasing to the eye but were taught to be very pleasing to the body. She knew she got freaked out at anything that wasn't "by the book", so she had to rely on visual stimulators. Sure, the innocent roundness of her face and the hopeful twinkle in her eyes had left her, but she still had a substantial bosom and hips that had gotten the child-bearing "seal of approval" from numerous grandmas in the grocery store and park. Besides, not many men can stand screwing a dog-faced stick for very long.

Her other inclination would have been that he was a cop sent to arrest any girl who tried to sell herself to him. She was a little derailed from that notion when he paid her upfront. Most cops would take her into the room and ask her very clearly (for the cameras and mics) how much she charged. They always made sure to confirm that she was really accepting money in exchange for sex, too. This guy had just unlocked the door of his car the first time she leaned through his window, driven to the hotel, and gave her the money as soon as they entered the room. He then proceeded to lie on the bed, still fully clothed, and close his eyes. The general lack of conversation had also somewhat killed her image of him as a cop. She always expected an interrogation, but his few muttered phrases were always about if she was hungry and to tell her that it was fine if she wanted room service.

She wasn't fully convinced of his not being police, however. She had watched enough shows, heard enough stories, and was taught enough to know about body mics and hidden cameras. Her third time seeing him, she found an ample opportunity to search his coat for spyware technology when he fell asleep on the bed. She dug her hand into all the pockets and searched the cuffs and lapels of the suit coat before nearly having a heart attack when he spoke. In a gruff voice, he told her to stop wasting her time and that she shouldn't be worried because there were no bugs attached to him or hidden anywhere in the room. Turning to look at him, she found that he had not turned his head or even opened his eyes to look at her. She sheepishly sat in the computer chair at a desk with no computer and began peeling an orange that she had sent away for.

It was at that same desk where she now sat, amusing herself by nibbling on the peeled segments of orange and drawing little twisters on a pad of paper with the name of the hotel printed on top. She was startled out of her thoughts when he spoke once more to her, saying more in fifteen minutes than he had said during their previous sessions combined.

"Why were you looking for wires in my coat?"

She considered the question. Should she really tell him the truth? Saying that she was suspicious of him and wanted to know what the hell was going on didn't seem like a good idea if she wanted to keep him as a customer, no matter how unorthodox of a customer he may be. However, he didn't seem like the guy who would want to put up with some bull response. Besides, she was pretty sure he already knew what she had been doing due to his statement beforehand. Therefore, she decided just to answer truthfully.

"Honestly, I thought you might be a cop. Your attitude is just so weird that I wanted to cover my bases on what was really going on."

"Stupid woman," he said. "If I were a cop, I wouldn't bug just my coat. Any idiot could lose it. You should have checked under my shirt for wires. If a cop lost his shirt, he probably wouldn't be thinking too much about eliminating your line of work."

Bristling at the comment, she set down her pen a little harder than necessary. Not only had he called her stupid, but he had also grouped her together with the rest of her sex in a most derogatory way. "Father" and the most hated of all her clients called her "woman". She wasn't going to let this asshole do it too, customer service be damned.

"Excuse me _sir_," she said, emphasizing the last word for a reason, "but if you're so goddamn intelligent then why don't you tell me how I was supposed to get your shirt off when you were napping on the bed, you lazy ass. And don't call be 'woman'. I have a _name, _you know." Glad that she was finally able to yell at someone, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms and legs comfortably. The comfort soon dwindled, however, as she began to fully comprehend what the consequences of her actions just may turn out to be. A sigh came from the bed across the room and she looked up, more worry than she would have liked crossing her face.

"Fine, then." The words sounded more like his previous sigh than actual speech. "What is it?"

"What is what?" she asked, confused by his question.

"Your name. I obviously can't call you by your name if I don't know what it is." He sounded as though he was rolling his eyes, but she couldn't know for certain because he had yet to open them.

"Oh." She thought about giving him one of her street names. A lot of men didn't want a normal name like they could find on any given neighbor or co-worker. Most of them wanted either something foreign and exotic, something that sounded like it was the name of a dog the size of a palm, or some beautiful actress or supermodel whom they would never have a chance with except in their fantasies. Some men, the most loathed of all, would simply forbid her to have a name and treat her like an inhuman sex robot. She knew that this guy, however, would probably be disgusted by a cutesy or obviously made-up name. She also felt that he would be able to see through a lie, no matter how realistic the name, and would look down on her for lying. Besides, she secretly really wanted to tell him. It might be nice to have someone other than the other girls and the detestable "Father" know her real name.

"Its Ino," she said. "My name is Ino. Please call me by it."

He opened an eye. Barely halfway open and only one eye, but somehow it made her glad to see that sliver of an eye looking her way. "Ok then, Ino."

A ghost of a smile grazed her lips. However, she was curious about something and hoped her curiosity didn't hurt her. "You know," she said, "Its considered common courtesy to offer up your own name when someone gives you theirs."

The second eye opened an equal bit as the first and both were now on her. She couldn't read the expression in them, but she knew enough to tell that the expression was neutral and not hostile. He looked at her for an extended period of moment or two before he spoke.

"Shikamaru," he said. His eyes closed once more after he spoke and he turned his head away from her, towards the ceiling.

Ino allowed a smile to turn up her lips after he turned away. She gathered up the peels from her orange and ripped the pages that she had doodled on off the pad of paper. On her way to the trashcan, she turned her head to look at the man and said, "Its nice to meet you, Shikamaru."

He only grunted in response.

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This is going to end up being my first multiple chapter story. Hopefully, I will be able to finish. I will try (or, at least, I`ll crank out a ton of chapters this week so I don`t forget when school starts). Reviews keep me motivated and make me feel good about myself (how sad is that?). Fun Fact: as I am writing this, I sound like Kelly (from The Office) in my head. Creepy.


	2. Cigarettes

Hey guys! Chapter 2 is now up! This will be about the average time (a week) for each chapter upload. If I haven`t posted one in over a week and a half, feel free to heckle me all you want. I give you permission. But even more important is CONTEST!!!!!!!! YAY! Basically, I dislike the way that the story title came out. It is supposed to be read as "Roxanne-Ino`s Story" but evidently, fanfiction doesn`t let punctuation in the title. How sad. So now, the title (at least in my mind) sounds like RoxanneInosStory. Not the way I wanted it to be. Therefore, I`m letting _you_ (the readers) make up a new title. There are some guidelines, though.  
1) I would like it, as much as possible, to follow the "Roxanne" theme since it is based off of the story. Ideally, the title should contain the word "Roxanne" but I`m open to really anything that is good.  
2)It has to be versitile. I`m planning on doing similar stories for Hinata and Sakura (still in the planning stages, so its not definite) so it would be nice to have a connection between all of them.  
3)Please make it short. I`ve already tried "The Life of Roxanne Through Ino`s Eyes". Yeah, no. Not going to work out.  
Are you asking yourself "Why would I bother doing this?" The answer would be because it wouldn`t be a contest without a prize, right? With your suggestion, include a prompt that you would like seen done. The person`s whos title I choose will get their plot made into a story (probably just a short oneshot) and their username/name will appear in both the summary and author`s notes of the story along with a hearty "Thank You!". Looking forward to your suggestions!!!!!!!

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Ino sat on the bed and watched the smoke tendrils, illuminated by the lights from within the room, drift away from the glowing end of his cigarette. She pulled the bed's comforter tighter around her shoulders, the cheap cotton and polyester blend fabric scratching against her bare skin. Why did it always have to be so damn cold at night? The window was fully open, thanks to the man who now sat on its sill, smoking that cigarette, and her "work clothes" didn't exactly cover up the most skin.

Sitting on the windowsill, cigarette situated between his fingers, made Shikamaru look far more like a wise old man than any other man she had seen in a long time. One of his legs dangled off of the sill and swung parallel to the wall while his other leg was bent at the knee and served as a resting-place for the hand holding the cigarette. He was gazing distantly at the cityscape, moving only to bring his hand to his mouth to inhale and then move it again to exhale the smoke. She felt like a worshiper gazing up at her idol, or like a young child looking up on the face of her father. It made Shikamaru seem distant, like the idol that is represented in a physical creation, but can never really be brought down to its worshipers. Or like a father's face that is at eye level with the child for a moment, but becomes unreachable again as the man returns back to his normal height. The thought of Shikamaru being so distant from her made Ino sad and frightened in a way.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a glimmer of something white. When she turned her head to look at it, she saw that it was the corner of Shikamaru`s cigarette box peaking out of his coat's inner pocket. She pulled the coat towards her on the bed and freed an arm from her comforter cocoon to pull the box out. The colorings of the label and of the box were slightly faded and the edges of the lid and corners of the body were worn and dented. Flipping open the lid, she counted exactly seven cigarettes that had not been used. She wondered how many cigarettes he went through in a day. He had only smoked a few times with her, and always waited to light up in the hotel room, so she could tell that he wasn't too heavy of a smoker. Also, his jacket didn't reek heavily of smoke; there was only a comforting hint of tobacco.

Ino pulled one of the remaining cigarettes out of the box and rolled it between her fingers, examining it. She had never really wanted to smoke in her life. No had she wanted to do those harder drugs that some of the other girls and some of her clients did. A lot of people would probably laugh at a prostitute who was trying to take the moral highground, but she had seen what the drugs did and decided that she already had enough problems to deal with without an addiction. Besides, cigarettes made her nostalgic, and she didn't want to dwell on the past.

Now, however, curiosity won her over and she began looking around for where Shikamaru had placed his lighter. She found it, a black plastic one that anybody could buy over the counter at a gas station, laying on the nightstand beside her. She reached over and flicked the flame into life with one hand while the other held the stolen cigarette, but before she could unite fire with tobacco a large hand halted the movement of her lighter hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ino looked up, startled by the sound of his voice so close. His eyes were looking straight into hers and were only a couple of inches away from her face. His hands, too, were closer than they had ever been and she reddened slightly at the fact that they still rested on her own. She averted her eyes to look at the sill where he had previously been siting. The metal ashtray provided by the hotel was sitting on the sill with the remnants of a still-smoking cigarette in it. Damn. She could never understand how he moved so quietly. It was like he was made of shadows or something.

"Do you know how disgusting these things are?" he asked, plucking the cigarette from her fingers. "They'll make you sick. Don't smoke them." He placed it back into the box and restored the box to its pocket inside his coat.

She laughed incredulously at his statement. He _had_ to be kidding. "Way to call the kettle black, Sir Pot. Besides, why do you care?"

He muttered something unintelligible and, she reasoned something that she probably didn't want to hear. He proceeded with a sigh and said, "Because, without me, you would probably end up in a cue for the pearly gates." He pushed himself off of the mattress with a creak and started to walk back towards the window, but was stopped when she gripped his shirt collar in a death grip and yanked him back down onto the mattress. "Ow!" he exclaimed, rubbing the part of his head that had accidentally knocked against her knee. "What the hell was that for?"

She really couldn't care less about the pain his head was going through. What she _did_ care about was the phrase that kept playing over in her head in both the voices of the young man before her and of the older man whose voice she had not heard in over a decade. Had it really been that long? It seemed like only yesterday that she was clutching her knee, scared into tears by the crimson blood that appeared after a rather harsh meeting with the concrete sidewalk. A pair of comforting arms had wrapped themselves around her tiny shoulders, the hands attached to them ready with a wet paper towel and a colorful bandage. Even more important were the concerned eyes and reassuring smile, hidden slightly by the wisps of blond hair so similar to her own.

When she was situated at the table with a sugar cookie in her hand, he had leaned over the top and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Smiling once again, he had told her to watch out for accidents unless she wanted to secure her spot in a line for the pearly gates. When she asked why he said that, he told her that it had been a favorite saying of his grandmother. He gave her a secretive wink and pulled another cookie from the box for her, saying that there was no such thing as "too sweet" for his little girl.

"Ino1" She was startled out of her memories by another close encounter with Shikamaru`s face. His forehead was wrinkled in confusion and his eyes were searching her face. "What is wrong with you?"

She was a little unnerved by the emotion in his normally stoic face. She didn't really want to look into his eyes anymore, so she averted her own eyes to look at the pack of cigarettes resting once more in his jacket pocket. She leaned in to grab them, but was stopped by a pair of hands on her shoulders.

"No, you are not doing this again. What's wrong?"

She ignored him and reached the rest of the way for the box, pulling out a single cigarette like she had done before. It was only until she was turning it over in her hands that she spoke.

"He used to smoke, you know."

Shikamaru`s eyebrows moved even closer together before saying, "Who used to smoke?"

She continued to avoid his gaze, instead focusing on the tobacco in her hands. "My dad. He used to smoke just like you, except he used a different brand. The ones he used had a little camel on the front of the box. I always thought it was the cutest little camel, but my mom hated everything about them. She used to kick him out onto the porch, even in the dead of winter, because she didn't want her house to smell. She was always pressuring him to quit the habit, but she was never successful."

Ino could feel her eyes starting to water, but she didn't want to stop. "Do you know it was actually me who got him to quit? We had just had one of those anti-drug assemblies at my elementary school and I came home all fired up about not doing drugs. While he was in the bathroom, I stole his cigarette box from the table and began cutting them up one by one with my school scissors. He came out of the bathroom to find me sitting on the kitchen floor, covered in tobacco shavings." She laughed a bit, tears now freely flowing down her face. "As he was cleaning me off, he made me promise that I would never touch another cigarette again and, if I didn't, he would give up smoking. I promised and he gave it up. All because of me. All because he said I was 'Daddy's Little Girl'."

She could barely see through the torrent of water now. The cigarette had lain in her hand through the story, but was plucked out of it by Shikamaru and placed on the nightstand.

"You know what's kind of funny?" she asked, twiddling her now-empty fingers. "Both of my parents died in a fire that _I_ caused. You want to know what happened? Well, when I was fifteen, I brought a guy I really liked over. He was part of that bad-boy scene and he asked if he could smoke in my house," She noticed that twiddling was doing nothing to disguise the trembling of her hands. "I knew my mom would be able to smell the smoke when she got home, so I took him into the flower shop that we owned and that was attached to our house. I guess the cigarette wasn't put out all the way when we left to go to a party because, when I got back, my house and the flower shop were just charred ruins. The police said that they found two adult bodies in the living room. Mar parents` car was in the garage! They died and I killed them!"

Ino sobbed hysterically, tears covering most of her cheeks and her hand shook uncontrollably. Physically, her body couldn't take the emotional stress and she collapsed. She doubled over and her face was an inch away from hitting the mattress before strong arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders and pulled her into Shikamaru`s warm chest. She spent the rest of the evening reliving her past in her head and sobbing into his dress shirt.

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Reviews are always loved and remember that contest =)!!!!!


	3. Gay

Ah! I am soooooo unbelievably sorry for the long wait. My official excuse is a biology paper that I had to complete, but I was really just being lazy and suffering from a case of writer`s block. I will really try to keep the updates at a constant pace, but you really never do know what is going to happen with school. On a lighter note, many of you previous readers may have noticed the name change. "Roxanne- Ino`s Story" has now been changed to "A Night with Roxanne". I would like to extend a super awesome congratulations to **angelgrl** who, while not only sharing the same apparent dislike of the letter "i" in the word "girl, also gave me the idea for the title. A really honorable Honorable Mention should go out to **greensapphire** who is a loyal reader/reviewer and who sent me an extremely long PM with zillions (literally) of ideas for both the title and the future plot. While, I am not using her ideas for this story, I really liked some of them and there is a high probability that I use one or more of them in future "Roxanne" stories. So, thanks for all the reviews!

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Her heels clicked on the sidewalk as she walked along the side of the street, cars passing by. She had been reflecting, and was pretty sure that Shikamaru was gay. It actually wouldn't be the first time that one of her clients turned out gay, mused Ino. Many men had come into her care, intending to prove their heterosexuality by making it through a night with her. Some had succeeded; if, by "succeeded" you meant that they had gone through the motions with such indifference that one might have thought they were simply in a boring business meeting. Then, yeah, they had "succeeded". The others, the real men in her opinion, usually just broke down and came out of the closet to her even before the light intimate stuff was done. She had even had a nice conversation with some of these men after their realizations. Plus, they almost always paid her a little extra for their session even though the fair thing would have been to not charge them. They basically got nothing for their money besides a tissue and an understanding hug.

The problem was that he gave her basically nothing to go off of to make assumptions about anything. Sure, he hadn't had sex with her, but the problem was that he hadn't even _tried_. At least the other men had kissed her and gotten her partially undressed before breaking down. Shikamaru didn't seem to want to touch her. Not on purpose, anyway. He was usually the most calm and composed person that she had ever met. His expression barely changed from that of indifference and his voice was almost always a level monotone. Sometimes, his emotionlessness infuriated her because it made her feel like the most dramatic and overly emotional drama queen ever. He oftentimes resorted to his favorite catchphrase "troublesome" when she did so much as get peeved when someone shoots her a look she deemed as dirty. Othertimes, his lack of emotions made him the perfect involuntary shrink, no matter how much he seemed to dislike it. She had discovered that he was highly intelligent and probably placed well above the "genius" mark. Therefore, she found that all of what he said was important and necessary, expressed in the simplest way possible.

A car passed by as she stepped into the illuminated circle of a streetlight. The driver made some sort of catcall, which she chose to ignore. She let another girl walk up to the window, hips swaying seductively. It didn't use to be this way. In the past, she had been known to sneak up behind a girl talking to a potential customer and steal that person with just a flutter of her long blonde eyelashes and a well-angled view of her body. She didn't enjoy it exactly, but it paid the bills. Now, however, she didn't have to seduce just any man. While it was never officially announced, she knew that she had a scheduled time each week to meet with Shikamaru. He always arrived on time, give or take a couple of minutes. Well, to be honest, it was more of "give a couple of minutes" because he was nearly always late. He credited it to fast driving equaling a higher risk for an accident. She credited it to laziness.

Today, she thought, was a record-setting day for him. Half an hour late. A new personal best (or worst, depending on how you looked at it). She was beginning to feel a little antsy. Some of the girls had given her odd looks, questioning why she hadn't seeked out another customer in just under an hour. She could also feel those dreaded eyes watching her from somewhere, their anger growing with every minute that she was not profiting. Pretty soon she would have to give up on waiting and go attract some customers, a thought which did not please her in the least.

As though drawn to her in order to stop that from happening, a car pulled up in front of her. She immediately recognized the nondescript dark blue color and simple design of it as the car that she was wishing would come. Ino pulled on the silver door handle, opening the door to get in. A reprimand was already on her lips when she turned to look at him, but she paused before speaking. There was something not right with Shikamaru. After careful scrutiny, she realized what it was. He wasn't in his usual attire. Normally, he would be dressed up in a button-up shirt and dress pants. His work clothes, she assumed though she didn't know what type of work he was in. It seemed like he had changed before coming to see her because he was casually dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt. He changed a little too quickly, she noticed, when she saw the white rectangle of his shirt tag sticking out the back collar of his shirt. Sighing at the fact that he could be so sloppy, she reached over to tuck the tag in, ignoring the questioning look from Shikamaru.

As she was folding the piece of rough fabric back into his shirt, the nail of one of her fingers accidentally scraped against a bit of Shikamaru`s collarbone. He jerked away as though branded by a hot piece of metal and hissed when the sudden movement seemed to trigger a more intense spasm of pain. Concerned, and a little more than confused, she quickly drew back her hand and asked him what was wrong. He grunted in reply that it was nothing. Ticked off, she persisted in her questioning of what had caused the very obvious pained reaction. Receiving no further reply, she took matters into her own hands and flicked on the car light, which had faded into nonexistence earlier. She then leaned over and, ignoring the small sigh of protest, pulled the collar of his shirt down so that she could see most of his shoulder. The light from the overhead bulb was very dismal and did not provide much of a contrast with the darkness of the inside of the car. That was why she first thought that what she saw was a shadow, a trick of the light. But, as she rotated his body back and forth, she saw that it stayed no matter at what angle the light hit it.

"Oh my god," she breathed, bringing her hand up to her mouth in shock. "What _happened_ Shikamaru?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning his shoulder towards the window and away from her.

"What?! What do you mean 'what do I mean'? Isn't it obvious? You have a giant bruise on your shoulder, Shikamaru. It's the darkest shade of black and blue that I have ever seen and it's _yellow_ in some places. Yellow! That's a really severe injury. How'd you get it?"

He continued to stare through the window at the people passing by. He did not answer her.

Ino sighed in irritation. Men, she thought as she watched Shikamaru pull away from the curb. They could be so utterly ridiculous sometimes. Both of them rode to the hotel in silence.

When they arrived in the hotel room, Ino threw her jacket down onto the bed and went immediately to the ice bucket.

"What are you doing?" asked Shikamaru as he was taking off his own coat to set on the bed beside hers. She noticed that he performed his actions as gingerly as possible.

"_I_ am going to get you some ice for the bruise that _you_ didn't want to do anything about," she said and held up the plastic liner of the ice bucket. She made sure to pocket the room key before leaving.

Upon return, she found Shikamaru in one of the hotel armchairs, boredly flipping through a brochure on sightseeing spots in the city.

She held up the bag of ice, which had been freezing her fingertips off for the past couple of minutes. "Ok, take off your shirt."

Without taking his eyes off the brochure, he slowly asked her, "Now, why would I do that?"

She sighed. Was he really going to make her spell it out for him? Apparently so. "_Because_ the cold is not going to seep through that much fabric. You obviously have an undershirt on, so we'll just put the ice over the thinner shirt. It's not like I'm asking you to strip, so could you just please take off your outer shirt?" She held out her empty hand towards him in anticipation.

He finally turned to gaze at her, his eyes studying her in that way which made her feel like some kind of equation that needed evaluation and solving. They locked eyes for a couple of minutes before he smirked and reached for the bottom of his shirt. She looked away while he undressed. It felt like an intrusion on a private moment to stare. When he was done undressing, he placed the shirt into her awaiting fingers. The shirt, warm because of his body heat, presented a strong contrast to the hand with the frozen water in it. She resisted the urge to hold it against her bare arms where goosebumps had formed. Looking back at him, she saw that she was right in her assumption of the presence of an undershirt. It was thin enough so that she could see the faint, tan outline of his chest, shoulders, and stomach; a fact that caused warmth to rise up her body, but which did nothing for her goosebumps.

Ignoring the blush, she pointed to the hotel bed. "Now, sit down there. That chair isn't big enough for the both of us and I have to be the one to hold the ice on your shoulder so it doesn't fall off."

He looked like he was going to say something but, instead, pushed himself up from the armchair and sat down on the bed. She pushed the coats farther towards the opposite edge of the mattress and set herself down beside him. Condensation had formed on the outside of the bag and had transferred to her hand, which she wiped on the comforter before holding up the bag. She asked him to turn his shoulders toward her, motioning with her own to demonstrate. He obliged and she set the bag of ice on his shoulder. The water layer on the outside of the bag seeped into his shirt, leaving an oval of dampness which made that part of his shirt opaque.

Ino leaned in a little to adjust the bag and accidentally caught a whiff of something. She wondered what it was and tried to figure it out without conspicuously leaning in to take another sniff. It wouldn't do her any good to develop stalker-like behavior. Analyzing what she _had_ smelled, she found that she could discern a faint tobacco trace. Very faint, though, which meant that he had stuck to the cold-turkey habit regarding cigarettes and that the scent came only from being imbedded in his clothing. There were also normal guy smells like blood and grime and then normal every-person smells like soap, detergent, and deodorant, but an undertone overpowered them all. It reminded her of the days in her family's flower shop. The scent had certain elements in common with the flowers that they use to sell, but less perfumey. It smelled dirty and clean all at the same time. It was so familiar, then it hit her. Grass! That's what it was! He must have been lying down in a field or on a hill somewhere recently.

She didn't realize just how far she had been leaning in as she thought about it until she felt a warm palm push her back into an upright position. "What are you doing?" he asked, almost whispering his words.

Crimson spread over her face at the question. What really _had_ she been doing? _Sniffing_ him like some dog? No wonder he seemed a bit weirded out. Heck, even she, herself, was weirded out by what she had done. She began with, "Well, you see I-. I was-," but found that she couldn't even form a sane explanation.

"Do you know that humans are instinctively attracted to one another by scent?" She was a little surprised at this bit of information that had been neither asked for nor required. However, she should have known that Shikamaru had known what she was doing all along. She almost interjected a comment, but he continued on. "It was so they could find someone to mate with and produce strong offspring. Today, we just call that attraction. By sniffing me, are you saying that you're attracted to me?"

Ino just stared at him. Her face was a mass of confusion, but that was quickly turning into anger. She was even more frustrated with the fact that the angry flush on her face looked more like a blush (which it wasn't!) than a flush. She managed to sputter out a half-intelligent question word before his response.

"You heard me. The question is 'Are you attracted to me?'" His stupid little smirk was just bugging her so much. Neither of them paid much attention to the bag of ice, which had slid from Shikamaru`s shoulder to the mattress below.

"What kind of question is that?!" she exclaimed. "What normal person would ask that question? Normal people don't base emotions on Neanderthal tendencies. Also, the answer to your question: why should I be attracted to you? It's not even like we're a couple. Just some whore and her client. And you're not even a _normal_ client. Most of my clients would make sure that they get what they paid for, but you just-"

In an impulsive (at least, she thought it was impulsive) move for him, she suddenly found her words being cut off by a pair of warm, soft lips. They weren't the first lips to graze her own, but she determined that they were definitely the nicest. He moved slowly and carefully, lips (and sometimes teeth) pulling gently at her own lips. She also found out that he tasted of mint, so maybe he had freshened up before seeing her. The thought popped into her head that he might have something to say about taste also being a primitive aphrodisiac, but was halted in her thought by the absence of the warmth of his lips.

His eyes were only inches away from her own blue ones, which magically made even more blood rush to her face (as compensation for the loss of his body heat, she reasoned). She made sure to add sight to the "Primitive Attractions" list. She was about to speak but was stopped again by the warmth of his body. Disappointingly, this time it was his index finger.

"Do me a favor? Never again call yourself a whore in front of me. Its disturbing," he said. She nodded and leaned in to kiss him once again. She wanted to taste him again, her body enveloped in his distinctive scent. But, just as her face was closing in, he once again put his index finger on her lips, halting her actions. She tried to speak through his finger or push it away. He pulled it away himself and gathered up his shirt and jacket.

He was gone before she could think up what to say.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it. Review if you did!


	4. Engagements

Six and a half weeks. I am a horrible person. `Nuff said.

* * *

She hated this man. As if she didn't notice the band of paler skin on his fat, hairy ring finger. She had gotten rather good at finding the clues of a married man, notably the finger on which he wore the band of gold that represented an eternal commitment to the "love of his life." During one of these "excursions" with her, men typically took off their wedding rings from their fingers, as though to prove to her that they weren't cheating on anyone special. They forgot, however, that a ring stays on a finger longer than the metal, physical portion of it. The most obvious sign was, of course, the ring of slightly lighter skin surrounded by the more colored remnants of regular exposure to sun. Sometimes, if the man was large enough, she could see a line of puckered flesh around the base of their ring finger from where the finger had grown thicker in the years following the wedding. Other times it was simply women's intuition. Most women had a sense of when a man was cheating _on_ them. Ino had a sense of when men were cheating _with_ her.

There were both goods and bads about these kinds of arrangements. The good would obviously have to be that she got paid the same for a few hours of companionship as she would for just an hour of regular prostitution. All she had to do was sit for a bit and look the part of a pretty, little accessory on the arm of some rich, old business tycoon. That was it. She didn't even have to sleep with them, not unless they wanted to pay extra. The bad was usually the companionship. Most of the men with whom she went on these pseudo dates were lecherous businessmen who just wanted to impress others with a nice bit of arm candy. They often made no mention of a wife, though signs of one were obvious to her, and those who did mention one made such nasty comments about them that Ino wished the poor women had never been mentioned in the first place.

Her companion this evening was of the loud, fat variety. He seemed to have more hair on his knuckles and chest than anywhere in his receding hairline. He looked like he belonged in a mob, which, she reflected, wouldn't be too entirely implausible. She had serviced a couple of mob bosses before in her career. His suit jacket was unbuttoned and so were the top buttons of his shirt. The exposed thick patch of curly, gray hair was tangled with two thick gold chains and maybe three or four thinner ones. His beefy fingers were adorned with rings of various sizes, shapes, and metals. Some had giant, gaudy stones while others had small stones or none at all. The only finger, besides the thumbs, that was missing decoration was the one with the band of pale skin on it. He had told her that his name was Boris and he was in Tokyo on a business trip from his home country of Russia. He spoke very little Japanese, which caused him to rely on the Japanese businessman, who was with the pair, to translate. He had apparently called "Father" for a girl who did not look entirely Japanese. A more European-looking girl was his type and Ino, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, fit the criteria.

So, here she was. Sitting in a pretty upscale restaurant in an old dress of hers. She had thought about wearing a kimono just to ruin her "European Girl" appearance, but she knew that it would have displeased him. They were taught that they should never, under any circumstances displease the client. The dress was a simple black one that she had bought at a retail store some years ago. Once a girl entered her twenties, she started going on some of these "escort dates" because businessmen wanted someone who looked slightly older than legal. The goal of impressing others with a young, beautiful date would not be accomplished if that date was fourteen. "Father" would give his girls some money on their twentieth birthdays and they were required to buy a sexy, but not too obviously so, formal piece of clothing to wear on the "dates." Ino had chosen one that covered up her breasts, but was short enough to reveal her long miles of leg. The color had faded a tab over the years and the fabric did not cling to her body as it had once done, but it looked pleasant enough. She had paired the dress with some faux pearl earrings a client had gifted her with a year or two back. On her feet were two black, strappy heels that further accentuated her long legs. Her hair was back in a messy bun that was both easy to create and sexy to looks at. The overall look wasn't the best, but it passed.

She calmly sipped her glass of champagne. The rule was to order only one glass. It would be just enough so that they could act a little tipsy, but too much alcohol could prove to be a drunken disaster. Also, only champagne or white wine was allowed. Too dark an alcohol would stain teeth unattractively. No drinks that could pack on the calories, either. Getting drunk was usually not too large of a problem for Ino. Sure, in the early days she had sometimes resorted to extreme intoxication to help her deal with dug-up emotions, but over time she had found that drinking just led to more regrets which led to more drinking. It was a vicious cycle, which she didn't see the appeal of getting sucked in to.

Her two companions couldn't be anymore of the opposing opinion. As his way of trying to assimilate into the Japanese culture, Boris had originally insisted on trying the restaurant's sake. As time, and liquor, wen on, however, he began to regret the foreign liquid on his tongue and ordered a home favorite. Two bottles of vodka later, his Russian was becoming even more indistinguishable than when he was previously experimenting with tourist-type Japanese phrases. To be honest, she was really surprised that he hadn't died of alcohol poisoning by now. She supposed all of his fat had absorbed the alcohol. At least he was a better drunk than his bespectacled friend, whose hand Ino had plucked many a time from a path up her inner thigh. Soon enough, she would have to be forced to sober him up by leaving five, crescent-shaped openings in his hand as a reminder of his encounter with a particular client's "special guest."

Between sips of champagne, bites of free bread, and hand stopping, Ino amused herself by doing one of her favorite activities. Or, at least, one of her favorite things to do to prevent her from tearing her blonde locks out in boredom. She had taught herself the art of people-watching when she was quite young. When she was little, her mother would perform double duty as a mother and shopkeeper by setting her down on a stool in the flower shop and keeping an eye on her while she tended to the customers. Her mother's preference would have been to put the child to work cutting and arranging flowers, but Ino was too young to be of much use doing anything besides sweeping the excess flower parts into piles. Anyway, her over-protective father hadn't let her use anything sharper than a butter knife until she was eight.

Without anything to do, Ino was left dissecting spare flowers, stems, and leaves. Pistols, xylem, and cuticles hadn't presented much of an entertainment source for the young girl, and her hard-working mother certainly couldn't spare time thinking up a game for her daughter, so Ino had to come up with something to do on her own. It began when she was sitting on the stool, legs ending at least a foot from the intersection of the high seat and the floor, fingers absent-mindedly braiding blonde locks. Two women came into the shop and their conversation had peaked Ino`s interest when they mentioned a neighborhood boy who had suddenly gone missing. From listening to them speak, Ino found out not only that the boy had developed a nasty illness which had kept him bedridden for a week, but also that one woman had suspicions that her husband was cheating on her and the other woman was fearful of the lay-offs at the hospital where she nursed. Awed by the information she had received just by listening to one conversation, little Ino began listening to other people's conversations as they came in and went out of the shop. She found out marvelous details like affairs, chronic illnesses, job woes, blossoming relationships, events that led to "I'm Sorry" bouquets, and so many other details that people forgot to leave out, not noticing the invisible child behind the counter. She learned how to read people who came in alone and didn't talk except in payment exchange just by watching them. It was this activity that led her to become such a good people-person and an expert saleswoman. She could see whether a person needed sympathy or congratulations and also how much they were willing to pay for it. She eventually gave up on the habit, being too busy helping her parents run the flower shop, but she likes to slip back into it whenever she was bored.

The restaurant wasn't very crowded, due to the fact that it was too late for many to eat dinner. There were two couples staring romantically at each other over the light of candles. One couple obviously came from money, as their clothes appeared to be designer labels and they ordered the most expensive items on the menu. The other young couple was dressed in clothes of modest value and look. They had ordered small portions, shared an appetizer, and did not have dessert. What difference there was in riches, however, was over-shadowed by the near-identical atmosphere of affection between each pair of lovers.

At another table in the restaurant sat one more couple. They were both middle-aged, but the woman appeared much older by the obvious signs of plastic surgery on her face. Ino`s group had received a couple of ill looks from them, so she wondered whether or not they knew either of her two companions. Highly more probable was that they were just angry about the drunken state of the two men.

The final guest at the restaurant was the most interesting to Ino. It was a woman, Ino guessed around her own age, sitting alone at a table. She was not dressed in eveningwear like the rest of the patrons. Rather, she was wearing a white business suit opened slightly at the chest to reveal a black shirt. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a clip, strands of it peaking out. The look was not for intended sexiness, like Ino`s own updo, but looked more like her hair had escaped after a day at work. Either she had taken off all of her jewelry or there had never been any to begin with, because no decoration adorned her features.

The woman had been sitting alone for quite some time. She had come in just as the first round of alcohol had been delivered to Ino`s table and had not left since. Nor had she ordered any food, choosing only to drink slowly the contents of a bottle of expensive red wine. She looked to be waiting for someone, though, because she frequently glanced up at the restaurant's large wall clock or bent down to check the electronic organizer in her purse. Ino could only assume that the woman was waiting for a hopelessly late date, and she commended the woman for her patience. She wouldn't have stood for that lateness from anyone.

The woman stared into her glass of wine for a couple more minutes before glancing up at the wall clock like she had done so many times before. Only, this time she did not glance back down at the table in disappointment. Instead, she straightened up and gave a slight smile to the person coming toward her. Ino could not see the person just yet because her back was to the door and there was a divider in between herself and the woman's table. Normally, she could see just the upper shoulders and head of the woman, but if she straightened her back she could see the whole table.

Ino had to glance down to sweep the roaming hand of her Japanese companion off of her thigh, so the woman's guest had already sat down by the time Ino got to look. The woman was talking to the person and her smile was bigger than when the person had first come in. The man-Ino could now be sure because of his broad shoulders-was reaching for something on the ground. All she could see of him, besides his back half, was his hair. It was brown and pulled into a spiky ponytail. The hair triggered something in Ino`s memory, and, when the man straightened up with a black briefcase in hand, she gasped, eyes widening slightly. The man was Shikamaru!

Ino sat up even straighter in order to fully see everything that was happening with Shikamaru and this woman. They were talking now, and the woman's expression had changed. Instead of happiness, a look of confusion and a bit of sadness had crept onto her face. The look changed, however, when Shikamaru opened up his briefcase and reached inside. He pulled out a small, black square box from it. Ino knew that box. Every woman knew that boxed and had dreamed of getting one since they were a little girl. Her confirmation came when he flipped open the box with the hand not holding it. She was too far away to make out details, but the light glittering off of the diamond was proof enough. Even more so when the woman clasped her hand to her face, covering up the radiant smile of delight that had blossomed on it. Ino slumped back down just as the woman reached to pluck the ring from Shikamaru`s hand.

He glanced over at her just as soon as she couldn't see him any more.

* * *

So, did you all like my amazing use of dialogue? In case you didn`t notice, there wasn`t any. Haha.


	5. Trust

Wow. Less than two weeks. I am really good! What should I ramble about? Um. Oh! Lately, I have gotten really into this Spanish radio station. I listened to it all while I was writing this. The funny thing is, I don`t know a lick of Spanish. I haven't taken Spanish since two years ago, and that was about a sixth of the year. Also, it isn't even popular music. Its totally mariachi. Ah, me and my whims.

* * *

Ino tore her earrings out of her ears and threw them down onto her dresser. Bobby pins and a hair clip followed the earrings. Reaching down, she unbuckled her shoes, and kicked them off without any regard for where they might land. She opened up a drawer to find clean underwear and a sports bra, another drawer to find a pair of sweatpants, and looked into her closet for a T-shirt and an oversized sweatshirt. Her towel was found on the back of her desk chair and her shampoo, conditioner, and soap were mixed in with the odd junk on her dresser. She gathered everything into her arms, slipped on some waterproof flip-flops, and headed towards the building's bathroom.

In her curtained-off changing area, she slowly undressed, taking care to balance at least one foot on her sandals in order to avoid the suspicious-looking mold growing in the corners of the tiled stall and so as to not step in the slime that coated the floor. She pulled back the curtain to the shower area and stepped inside. A dark mass of hair was visible, meaning that she would have to make her shower short or else she would be wading through her own filth in just a few moments. When turned on, the water was lukewarm, a surprise because the pipes usually only carried scalding hot or freezing cold water. The pressure was as dismal as ever, though. Barely even a trickle dripped through the showerhead. She had never gotten a decent shower in this hellhole. It has begun to get bad in her early days and, when her hair had started to get clumpy from the oil in it, one of the older girls told her how to get a decent shower. When their hair started getting oily, the girls would bring their shower materials with them on a visit and lured their clients into the shower. This technique not only gave the clients something unpredictable, but also provided a decent shower for their companion.

Ino hadn't had time lately to lure her room-getting clients into a shower. She hadn't even had the mindset to remember her bathing items. Her brain had been too occupied with the incident that had happened less than a week before. The incident that kept replaying itself in her head, over and over again until it seemed to be the never-ending background to all of her thoughts and feelings. It was that one kiss with that one man. It was that one _damned_ kiss with that one _damned_ man who was engaged. Who was engaged and was probably off celebrating with his new fiancée. While his kiss played over and over in the mind of a woman who had been kissed thousands of times before, but never like _that_.

"Ah!" she cried out, hands reaching for her eyes. The shampoo had slid down her forehead and into her open eyes. The stinging pain brought her out of her thoughts and caused her to squeeze her eyes closed tight so that they may cause tears to come and rinse out the contaminants.

The tears came and, though they were for physical pain, they caused an immediate shift in her emotions. Normally, this shift would not be bad and she would be able to switch back to a state of emotional equilibrium. This time, however, the immediate shift to sadness, coupled with her previous distress, caused a feeling of great intensity.

More tears than were necessary to flush out the shampoo cascaded down her cheeks, mixing in with the water from the showerhead. She felt them with the hands that still covered her eyes and realized that she was not just reacting to the physical pain. The emotion that she could only describe as despair overwhelmed her and she sunk to her knees in the rapidly rising pool of water. When she felt that she had cried every possible tear she could produce, she remembered that she was kneeling in a flood or filth and quickly rose, using the wall as support. Just as soon as she put her hand onto the wall, she felt something crunch underneath her weight. Hurriedly, she rinsed the final dregs of shampoo out of her hair and off her face. She opened her eyes to look at her hand. In her palm were the eight tiny legs and squished body of a spider. Disgusted, she rinsed the body off of her hand and washed the hand vigorously with soap.

Ino finished up her shower, dried off, changed, and stepped out of the shower stall. She has left her comb in the room, she realized, so she tried to run her fingers through her hair. It didn't work as well as she had hoped, and the only result was a hand full of hair. So, she stopped and decided to just wait until she got back to her room. She draped her damp towel around her shoulders and gathered up all of her toiletries and clothes. Over the row of rusty sinks was a large, cracked mirror newly covered in the thin layer of condensation that was a product of her shower. She leaned over the sinks and looked at her face close up. Dark circles shadowed the undersides of her eyes and faint lines jutted out from the corners of her eyes across her skin. It seemed like her lifestyle had caught up with her and was causing her to fizzle out.

Sighing, she turned away from the mirror and walked out of the bathroom. The hallway was dark and quiet. Most of the girls were either out on late business or sleeping off the business of this night. She passed one room where silent crying could be heard through the door. She had never met the girl who lived there, but her life must be a particularly difficult one because, every time Ino passed that room, she heard sobs.

Upon arriving to her own room, Ino pulled out her key in order to unlock it but found that it was already unlocked. Strange, because she always made sure to lock her door and finding it in a state which she did not leave it in raised all kinds of alarm bells in her head. Not wanting to be laden down with all kinds of unnecessary weight, she laid down her clothing and excess toiletries on the ground by the doorframe. She chose the heaviest item-her shampoo bottle-to hold and use as a weapon, if necessary. After straightening, shampoo bottle in hand, she quickly opened the door.

Sitting on her bed was a man. He was large, but more muscular than fat. Ino could have no problem imagining him as a butcher, slicing up animal carcasses in singular swings, except for his face. Framed by a wild mane of sandy brown hair was a face of pure kindness. His eyes squinted slightly and, coupled with the slight upturn of his lips, made it look as though he had never wished ill will of anyone. Still, one could never be too careful, so Ino started to raise the makeshift weapon. She stopped when the man lifted up his hand.

"Whoa, wait there a second," he said, smiling. "I'm not here to hurt you. My name is Chouji Akimichi. I am a friend of Shikamaru. He sent me over here to tell you that you are in trouble. I can't say much more than that except to tell you that you have to pack. Pack like you are moving, because you are. I don't think it will be safe to come back here. I will tell you more in the car; the walls are paper-thin here."

Needless to say, Ino was shocked by the turn of events. She had been introduced to someone and asked to abandon the place that she had lived in for twelve years just so she may leave with him. All in the exact same speech! She set the bottle of shampoo on her dresser so that she may cross her arms and look at him in disbelief.

"Why should I trust you?" she asked. "I hardly know you. Wait a moment. I don't know you _at all_, which gives me even less of a reason to trust you."

He chuckled, a sound magnified by the enormity of his chest. "I don't expect you to trust me," he said, "especially not after meeting under circumstances such as these. What I want you to ask yourself is not whether you trust _me_, but whether you trust _Shikamaru_. If, indeed, you do, then I hope some of that trust will extend from the man to his actions-namely, trusting me-so that you may see that it is right to pack and come with me. If not, then I will leave you, but with a warning. -You will be in grave danger if you stay here. What is your answer?"

Ino had to stop and think for a moment. _Did_ she really trust Shikamaru? A week ago, her answer would have most likely been a "yes." After tonight, however, she was on the fence about it. Her previous trust may have just been a reaction to the hormones and emotions coursing through her body at the sight and thought of him. Contradicting that was the fact that she really might just be angry with him. She really shouldn't be angry. She didn't have a right to be a part of his personal life, and maybe she hadn't been. Just fooled into thinking so by her emotions. She was really just an object, but, with him, she hadn't felt so. It was like she was something of worth in his eyes. No, not something. Someone. It was odd. She hadn't felt like a person in a long while. Not since her parents. Even with the newly found intensity of anger at him, she still had to admit that she would follow anything Shikamaru said.

"Yeah," she told Chouji, "I guess I do trust Shikamaru."

* * *

Sorry about the shortness of this chapter. The reason that it is so short is because this is actually part of a chapter (notice the Roman numeral "I" after the chapter title). I figured it out and, if I hadn't separated it, the chapter would have been just about double the size of a usual chapter. The second half of this will be posted shortly.

_Author's Note: Disregard this. I changed the chapter titles._


	6. Change

I'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorry

I truly am! Dear god, there is really no excuse for what I have done =,( I won't even add up the months (Months!) that I let this chapter go. Basically, I went from one month of 80 degree weather to another. When you live in the North, that's saying something. On the plus side, this chapter is about 2,000 words longer than my previous ones. Plus! the next chapter was originally going to be a part of the chapter, but I decided to split them apart. So, new chapter in a couple of day guaranteed! Yay! Please don't hate me.

Oh, I also went back and revised the earlier chapter. Nothing fancy. I just reworded them to get rid of that annoying "he said, she said" format I had going on for the beginning and endings. Blech.

* * *

The car was dark brown in color. Unlike Shikamaru's sparsely occupied vehicle, Chouji's car seemed to overflow with stuff. Most of it appeared to be cooking related. Boxes of utensils, cookbooks, and non-perishables filled up the backseat and, she had to guess, the trunk. Receipts and various recipe cards were crumpled into the cup holders. The car had an odor of too many food smells mixed together. Chouji had to remove a portable grill from the passenger seat and cram it into the back so Ino could have a place to sit. The only place that she could put her stuff was in her lap or around her feet, making her glad that she had packed light. She was amazed by just how little treasured items she had acquired in the ten years of her occupation. Modest clothes, hygienic items, and sellable jewelry were packed into two duffel bags and an athletic bag. For all her worldly possessions, it really wasn't a lot.

Ino shivered and tucked her hands even deeper into the pockets of her jacket. She had changed out of the sweatpants and put on blue jeans, but kept on her shirt, sweatshirt, and added a winter jacket. All three layers of clothing were doing nothing to fight against the arctic chill of the car. The man had the air-conditioning on full blast at its coldest setting. She supposed it had something to do with his high metabolism or, if he transported produce regularly, it was out of habit to keep his food from spoiling. Still, her guesses did nothing to help cure her chattering teeth.

To distract herself from the temperature, she decided to get to know Chouji. After all, he had practically kidnapped her, hadn't he? (She chose not to include that the kidnapping had been voluntary.) "So," she began, "are you a chef or something?"

He smiled, turned his head to look at her for a moment, and went back to watching the road. "Or something…" he said, a curious note in his voice. "Do you know a restaurant called The Sapphire Wing?"

Ino stared at him. Did she know a restaurant called The Sapphire Wing? It was only one of the top-ranked five-star restaurants in Tokyo! Not too many people really knew about it, actually, because it operated on a low-key basis. The restaurant didn't advertise and the customers felt that they ruined the secret of the restaurant if they spoke too much of it. New customers were brought in by existing regulars, whose feelings of superiority about being in the loop was the real reason the restaurant stayed successful. People liked being recognized by name as soon as they walked through the door.

"Of course I do," she said.

"Yeah, well, it's the family business. Dad is the head chef, Mom is the manager, and I'm the sous chef. It's nice working with them."

The mention of family businesses had reminded Ino of the flower shop and her parents. She fell silent at the memories. Chouji, noticing her change in attitude, decided to change the subject. He evidently realized that parents were a touchy subject.

'Cold?" he asked. She nodded, the sensation coming back to her in the absence of conversation. "There's a pretty thick blanket in the back. On the floor." She smiled in gratitude and reached back. Folded up under a box of garlic was a heavy knit blanket. She wrapped it around herself, feeling instantly better.

In gratitude, she decided to divulge a little information of her own. "My parents used to own a flower shop. I would help them run it."

Chouji turned his head and gave her a small smile. "Really?" he asked. "What were your favorite flowers from the shop?" Ino was pleasantly surprised that he hadn't taken the obvious parent bait. She answered him and they spent the rest of the car ride exchanging flower facts and recipes.

A good hour later, they slowed and pulled into the parking lot of an old high-rise. The building, as Chouji explained, was an old American hotel built in the seventies. The hotel was abandoned in the mid-eighties, until more than a decade later when the heads of their organization found it and remodeled it.

Ino realized that she still didn't know exactly what Chouji's connection to her was, besides being a companion of Shikamaru's. Sous chefs generally didn't come to a prostitute's bedroom and take the girl with them, claiming imminent danger. As for Shikamaru, she suddenly realized that she had no idea what the guy did for a living. His formal uniform could belong to any number of desk jobs, but that awful wound threw her last week. This mysterious organization that Shikamaru belonged to was looking just like a street gang, complete with a hideaway in an old building.

Chouji did not park in one of the spaces closest to the dim neon reading "Keiko's Retreat," but continued to the side of the building. Before doing so, however, he turned off the automatic light on the ceiling of the car and dimmed the headlights. There was a chain link fence running from the side of the hotel to the brick of the abandoned building right next door. Chouji parked the car facing the fence and got out, muttering "Be right back." He used a key on his car's key ring to unlock a padlock and open the fence's gate. Afterwards, he got back into the car and drove them through the opening, pausing once again to re-lock the gate.

By the light of the headlights, Ino could see the weeds growing through the many cracks in the pavement. The painted outlines of parking spaces were a distant memory; only scattered colorful rocks marked the original shapes. Though Chouji had said the front of the building had been remodeled, it still looked barely livable. The back, however, was even worse. Broken windows, rusted metal and graffiti-covered walls reminded Ino of buildings that were set to be demolished. That or some sort of makeshift living space for those who slept on the streets. Indeed, when Chouji turned to park right behind the building, she saw the dark lump of a body asleep in a patch of overgrown grass. The eyes of a large dog, alert and awake, were given a demonic glow for a moment. Even without the light, the dog's white shadow could be seen through the darkness.

She heard rustling from a space behind her in the car and looked, only to have a large flashlight placed in her lap. "Here," said the man who had given it to her, "turn this on. Once I shut off the car, and the headlights with it, you won't be able to see a thing." She complied, pushing the switch up. A faint light was seen. It slightly illuminated the dashboard. "All set?" Chouji asked. She nodded. A clanging of metal was heard, then nothing. No rumble of the car of fanning of the heater reached her ears. Darkness pressed down on all sides, making the silence ten times more silent. The blackness threatened to overwhelm, until the glow of the flashlight was noticed. Once weak light cut through the darkness like a holy beacon and made Ino breathe a little easier. She saw why Chouji had given her the light. With no visible streetlights and abandoned buildings on either side, the back of the old hotel was like stepping into a cave.

"Ok, we're here!" Chouji said enthusiastically. Ino turned to point the flashlight at his chest. Soft, indirect light illuminated his face and hands to show the smile and "Welcome Home!" gesture he wore. "Grab your stuff and let's head out."

Ino turned the beam of light to face outside of the car. She could again see the back of the building. It didn't look pretty. In fact, it looked downright uninhabitable. "Chouji," she said, "I don't mean to be a bad guest or anything, but this place doesn't look like rats would want to stay here, let alone people. I mean, I'm perfectly all right with staying the night in the car if this is all you can afford."

Chouji chuckled. "No, no. Ino, this isn't about money or anything of that nature. You'll see in a second. Just grab your bags and follow me."

She still thought the situation was odd, but, because she had decided to at least trust him, she decided to follow his orders. With a duffel bag on each arm and the sports bag on her back, she opened up the car door and stepped out onto the pavement. Chouji got out on the other side and pressed the delayed locking button, making the car "ding" as he reached in back to grab a heavy-looking box of cans. He carefully shut the door with the box and began to walk towards the building's back. Ino followed him, lighting his steps with her flashlight. They arrived in front of a big, metal door, obviously a service entrance from when the hotel was grand enough to need an employee entrance. Rust had begun to color the corners of the door, but what grabbed Ino's attention was the small keypad located underneath the door handle. It was so well hidden, in fact, that Ino did not see it until Chouji had shifted the box onto one arm and used the other to type out a code on the keys. Intrigued more than anything else, Ino held the light up for him to see by as she watched him type. When he was done, he used his free arm to push her back a step. "Stare at the top of the doorframe," he said, and indicated where to look. He joined her in their odd position, looking at a rusty door in the middle of a deserted lot. Eventually, someone somewhere decided that they were worthy. After a few minutes of waiting, Ino heard a faint buzzing and the unmistakable sound of a lock clicking.

From behind the door stepped a woman. She wore black Chinese-style pants and an equally as dark Chinese shirt. Her brown hair was pulled back into a bun on the top of her head; two ornamental chopsticks stuck out from the sides of the bun.

"You're late," said the woman, looking up at Chouji.

"Yeah, well the house's security guard had a higher tolerance for alcohol than I had expected," said Chouji. "I had to run to the liquor store to pick up another six-pack. Had to wait even a bit longer to slip an extra sleeping pill into the drunk's beer. I got the papers for Shikamaru, though. They're in this box, under the cans." He indicated the large box in his arms as he spoke.

"Ok then," said the woman. She opened the door wide so Ino and Chouji could walk in. The room that they entered into was more of a large closet than an actual room. There were no decorations and it was almost the same inside as it was outside. The only lights were a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling and the illumination from a control panel much like the one stationed on the outside door. The woman turned to the new door after securely closing and locking the first door. She mimicked the process of punching in a code and unlocking the door that Chouji had done. The three of them walked through the newly open door and down a brilliantly lit stairwell.

Ino guessed that they must now be in the basement. The underground floor would be the only place without windows, so all of this light wouldn't be seen from the outside of the building. The stairwell led down into the beginnings of a wide hallway. Wooden doors lined the hallway; most of them propped open. If she listened, Ino could make out the sounds of people moving about in the rooms behind these doors. The lack of any conversation disturbed her a bit, but the movements sounded rushed so she supposed that there was no time for chitchat.

Next to the main doorway, at a desk covered in television screens, was another new face. The man was almost completely covered up by a hooded jacket. Only his face could be seen, and even that was partially covered by circular black sunglasses. He regarded them without expression. If Ino looked past him at one of the screens, she could see the outside threshold where she and Chouji had stood. The picture was made green by the night vision cameras.

Her female companion suddenly looked like she had remembered something. "Oh shoot," the woman said, "I just realized I never introduced myself. My name is Tenten. And this," she gestured towards the strange man, "is Shino. He handles the security, as you can probably tell."

Ino muttered a "Hello" to the man. Shino gave her a small nod in return.

"Hey, Tenten," said Chouji, shifting the box around. It looked like the weight of the box was getting uncomfortable. "Do you think we can pause these intros so I can put this in Shikamaru's office? It's getting heavy."

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Tenten. "Hang on a second. I think I'll get Naruto to show Ino to her room. Shino shouldn't leave the monitors and I have to come with you to unlock Shikamaru's office." She walked down the hallway and stopped in front of an open door. She stuck her head inside and began talking to the room's occupant. Ino couldn't hear what they were saying, but after a while Tenten turned around and went back to their group.

"That idiot Naruto hasn't packed up any of his stuff yet, so he won't be able to escort you," Tenten said, "but Sasuke was in the same room, so I just asked him to do it. He'll be out in a sec."

Sure enough, Ino soon heard footsteps on the concrete floor, but they didn't prepare her for what stepped out of the room. If she were to give this creature a name, it would be The Most Beautiful Man Alive. Tall, with a model-like figure and a graceful walk, the god, for she now believed such a simple term as "man" didn't do him justice, walked towards her. Black hair framed obsidian orbs encased in a face so beautiful in its perfection that Ino had no problem imagining this creature as an aristocrat solely based on his facial features. If she had met this man not even three months ago, she would have fallen in love on the spot. Now, however, she was just content to bask in his physical perfection.

The man-Sasuke-stopped in front of their group. Ino could feel him sizing her up with his eyes. She felt that she failed the inspection.

"Why don't you take Ino to Living Room Three, Sasuke, while I show Chouji to Shikamaru's office?" said Tenten, handing Sasuke a brass key off of a densely packed ring of keys.

Sasuke took the key and turned to Ino. "Follow me," he said and began briskly walking down the hall without sparing her a second glance. Ino grumbled internally (He could have at least offered to carry a bag!) before jogging to reach him.

They walked down the hallway, not a word spoken, until they reached a door marked "LR3" in black block lettering. Sasuke unlocked the door with the key and pushed it open. Ino walked into the room. It was a sparsely decorated bedroom. Indeed, the only furnishings were a bed, chair, table, and dresser, all made out of cheap wood. Attached to the bedroom was a bathroom with a second door leading to, she guessed, a second "living room."

Sasuke had followed her into the room, but stood near the door. He placed the room's key on the dresser and gestured towards her bags. "Don't bother unpacking," he said, "there won't be enough time." Ino was about to question him on his meaning, but he turned and walked out of the door before she had the chance.

Now alone, Ino wondered what she should do. She realized she had taken this whole life changing experience pretty darn well and became proud of herself. Setting her bags down by the chair, she didn't bother unpacking them per Sasuke's warning. She didn't know why she was following the arrogant prick's advice, just that she felt she should. With the absence of the bags' weight, she felt new relief at being released from their burden. She also felt a wave of exhaustion pour over her. She realized that it was probably close to dawn and she hadn't slept all night. Therefore, after using the bathroom to wash up, she pulled the warm blankets over herself and promptly fell asleep in the bed.

Some hours later (she didn't know exactly how many; the room's decorator had apparently disliked clocks), Ino heard a knock on the door which startled her out of her sleep. She mumbled a "Hang on" and forced herself out of bed. The light blinded her when she turned it on, which led her to spit out some curses at the person waking her up. She rather enjoyed her sleep. She expected to see Tenten with a mind to give Ino a tour, or Chouji saying goodbye hours after he should have left. Even Sasuke, ready to kick her out, was a viable option in her head, but what she saw was what she never suspected.

A bowl of fruit cubes cradled in the arms of a pink-haired woman.

"_Sakura_?" Ino questioned, dumbfounded at the idea that this-this! -person would be the one to show up on her doorstep. "B-b-but you're _Sakura_."

Sakura laughed weakly. "You were always the smart one, weren't you Ino-pig?" she said.

At the sound of her old nickname, Ino's emotions overtook her. The exhaustion that still lingered, coupled with the shock of seeing her old friend again, and added to the immense joy of finding out that Sakura was alive spilled out of her eyes in big, warm tears. Sakura made a murmur of concern and set the bowl of fruit down on the dresser while guiding Ino onto the bed. "Oh, Ino," she whispered.

Ino's tears could not be stopped, for they were well earned. This was the Sakura who had comforted her after "Father's" brutal punishment. This was the Sakura who had kept Ino's hopes up by talking about dreams of medical school and flower shops late into the night. This was the Sakura who had needed Ino's special brand of verbal protection when the other girls accused her of being a thief. This was the Sakura who had sewn up a knife wound in one of the younger girls with only a drugstore sewing kit and a candle for sanitation purposes. This was the Sakura who, five years ago began talking about a strange, handsome client who she maybe/kinda/really might be falling in love with. This was the Sakura who, by leaving just a short note, said goodbye to Ino just a few months after meeting her lovely clients. Ino never heard from her friend again. That is, until this very moment.

When her tears had stopped, making the bed's top blanket wetter than her face, Ino decided to tackle the matters at hand. "What happened, Sakura?" she asked insistently. "Where did you go five years ago? Why didn't you tell me anything? Why are you _here_? Why am _I_ here? Who are these people? Chouji, Tenten, Sasuke, Shino, Naruto, _Shikamaru_?" She had to take a few deep breaths after her deluge of questions.

Sakura sighed and Ino realized guiltily that it looked as though Sakura hadn't slept. Upon further inspection of her friend, Ino found that she was wearing a men's Yale University sweatshirt and the bottom part of a blue pair of scrubs, stained dark in some places.

"Ino, I'm warning you, this story is going to take a while. A long while," said Sakura. "Why don't you take a shower, get yourself cleaned up and then come back. No, please don't protest. It'll save me time to collect my thoughts. Then we can both eat breakfast afterwards. I don't know about you, but I'm famished. As you can see, I brought along our favorite tropical fruit, straight from the can. Oh, and do you have an extra pair of pants that I can borrow? These got a little dirty with fluids that'll kill anyone's appetite if mentioned by name. Thanks."

Ino grabbed up her stuff and headed to the conjoined bathroom. She turned on the shower and, after undressing, let the water run over her. She chose to not let herself think about all that had happened in the past two days. Her mind needed time to relax; being calm would be necessary for what Sakura needed to tell her. So, she just let herself give into the otherworldly underwater sensation.

A dark shadow of water surrounded the hair resting on her shirt. Ino squeezed her towel around her hair once more and stepped out of the bathroom. Light steam curled around her ankles and she realized that the shower had taken longer than she realized. 'Oh well,' she thought, 'much can't be done about it now.'

She noticed that Sakura had curled up at the end of the bed. The previously worn scrubs were folded up next to their owner. A pair of Ino's pants had taken their place. "Sorry I took so long," said Ino. "I just haven't had a decent shower in weeks."

"It's all right. It gave me time to think," Sakura said. There were bags under her eyes that Ino hadn't notice before. The shower had cleared confusion, caused by sleep and emotions, from her head. Sakura's skin's discoloration made Ino realize that they really hadn't seen each other in _years_.

Ino glanced at the dresser. The sight of Sakura's bowl of fruit made Ino's stomach rumble. She hadn't eaten anything decently filling in over twenty-four hours. Ravenous was only beginning to describe her hunger.

After grabbing the bowl, Ino brought it over to where Sakura was and sat on the bed, facing the other woman. She had seen that there were two pairs of chopsticks lying next to the bowl. She handed a pair to Sakura and used the other to start picking up the cubes of fruit. Across from her, Sakura did the same with the other chopsticks. The two of them, equally as hungry, finished the monstrous bowl of fruit wordlessly and quickly. The sugar of the meal kicked in along with having full stomachs, which put the two women in a much cheerful mood than they were in before.

Now that she was rested, clean, and fed, Ino thought that it was time she heard what Sakura had to say. "I've eaten and showered, Sakura," she said. "Now you have to answer me. What the hell happened?"

Sakura bit down on the wooden tips of her chopsticks before speaking. "I suppose you're right, Ino," she said. "I mean, all this stuff happens to you in the matter of a day and no one tells you _anything_." She was right. Ino grew a bit angry at the thought. "I'll be your informer, then," continued Sakura. "You want the entire story, in full? I'm assuming as much." Ino nodded yet again.

Sakura cleared her throat. "I'll warn you beforehand," she said, "I don't know everything about this organization. I doubt no one but the leaders do. However, I do know quite a lot about your situation and I will tell you everything that I know. I', telling you this in the strictest of confidence, you understand?"

"Of course," said Ino.

Sakura smiled. "I knew you would," she said.

* * *

As repentance for my horrid time delay, I am making sure that I personally respond to any and all reviews from this point on. It's a habit that I had gotten out of, but I really think that it's a nice touch when someone goes out of their way to leave a nice review and then gets contacted by the author. I appreciate even little reviews like "I love this!" but remember that the more detailed and longer reviews will get a longer and more personalized response. Thanks for all the support! I hope I haven't lost anyone due to my carelessness!


	7. Sakura

I would like to make a point that THIS WAS DONE/TYPED TWO WEEKS AGO!!! I was totally within a good time frame!!! That is, until I began smelling this awful smell. Almost like something was burning. Then, my computer went black. When I tried to turn it back on, I got one of those lovely thing called a Blue Screen of Death which erased my hard drive, taking with it the typed out document which I had been saving periodically on the computer for fear of a power failure, but never got around to saving on my flashdrive. *Sigh* My little sob story is now complete.

On a happier note, I have recently been hooked on old music. Sinatra and Elvis are currently in rotation on my iPod. I've become addicted to old Hollywood. Turner Classic Movies channel is seriously a gift from God. I first became addicted when I saw that they were having a "Pirates of the Caribbean" special. Dashing pirates, swooning maidens. Oh, so amazing. _The Black Swan_ and _The Spanish Main_ were fantabulous. _Singin' in the Rain_ is just one of those movies that makes you happy. Saw that for the first time on TCM. I also recommend _Dragonwyck_. I fell in love with Jeff :)

(This is turning into a long Author's Note. Oops.) If any of you guys are confused as to the perspective of this story, it's told in first person Sakura. There's also some Sakura/Sasuke action, which isn't in the summary of the story. So, if you don't like the coupling, I'm warning you now. I guess you could blame this chapter on all the classic novels I've been reading (again with the old stuff). This type of frame story is featured in _Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, as well as those ghastly long letters that everyone writes in every type of classic novel. The format is just stuck in my head.

* * *

_Sakura began her tale…_

I guess this all starts a little over five years ago. This was when I was still with you. When we were still working together on the streets. Remember we would take corners close to one another so we could be together all night long? Well, one night you were sick. That's the night you were bedridden. I knew "Father" would chew you out for not making any money, so I decided that I would rake in more than usual to compensate. Fate must have been smiling down on me, because not five minutes after my decision was made a sports car pulled up next to me.

'Oh God, yes!' I thought, knowing I could overcharge the fool in there. I imagined the man inside to be well past his prime. No rich, young millionaire would need the service of a prostitute. They could charm the pants off of any girl with either money or acquired good looks. I pulled some things up, pulled some things down, and strutted over to the passenger side window. I fully intended to get in, mind you.

The window started to lower and I mentally cheered inside. I knew I had gotten a good lead, if I hadn't full-on won already. I expected an old man, so I put on my best smile, intending to use every ounce of charm and flattery I possessed on him. You can imagine my surprise when the window rolled down to reveal a handsome guy, not much older than me. Actually, "handsome" wouldn't even begin to describe him. He looked, to me, like a film star. Or a prince. He was so gorgeous, with beautiful black hair and even darker, more beautiful black eyes. He looked somehow familiar to me, but I couldn't place him at the time. Of course, you'll recognize him as the man, named Sasuke, who led you to this room. For ease's sake I'll just refer to him by his name from now on, except I didn't know it at the time.

Even though I was taken aback by his appearance, I still had a mission to do. The only difference that his appearance made was now I didn't have to lie when I called him the "Most Gorgeous Man I Had Ever Seen." The annoying tick of recognition was still there, but I brushed it off, assuming that I had seen him pick up another girl before and now was just my turn.

He didn't say anything, just focused on my trademark pink hair. He seemed satisfied by my appearance, but then looked disgusted when he saw my cleavage. The look he gave me made me feel oddly shamed, so I shifted my shoulders to lessen the amount of skin shown. He seemed satisfied, which he must have been because he unlocked the door I was leaning on. "Get in" were the first words I heard from him, and the only words he said to me before arriving at the hotel.

Stepping into the room, I was all set to seduce him. I enjoyed that he was such a looker. The only thing about him that put me off was his arrogance, but I quickly got over that part. Any warm-blooded female would have gotten over that. If I was going to be forced to do this, I might as well have fun.

However, before the straps of my top had even fallen down my shoulders, he threw a ball of money at me and said, "Don't bother."

I was thoroughly confused at this point. Why give me the money and not want the service in return? It was a big wad of cash, too. At least triple my regular fee. Maybe he was repulsed by me? Oh, that thought riled me up. If he thought I was ugly, why pick me up? Did he think I was too unfortunate to get any business? Did he _pity_ me?

By this point in my thinking, I had gotten so worked up over my thoughts that I acted impulsively. In a huff, I fixed my shirt and then viciously threw the bundle of money at his smug, handsome, face. From knowing my past history with sports, you can certainly tell that the bundle hit him right on his cheek. Pleased with myself, I turned and started walked towards the door, muttering "See you later, asshole," to him.

With speed I once thought impossible for humans, Sasuke circled around me, locked the door, and moved so that there was, at most, an inch of space between our chests. The close contact was obviously made to intimidate me by fully utilizing Sasuke's height, but I resisted. I resisted even when I saw that his eyes appeared to have little specks of blood-red in them. The combination of body heat and some sort of fabulous cologne made my head woozy, but I stood my ground.

I didn't waver until, in his richly deep voice, he said, "You sit down on that bed right now and don't move for the hour I am owed, or I swear I will tie you to the bedposts and gag you with this bundle of money. The money, which, by the way, you will be taking with no further complaints."

The image that came with his threat of tying me to the bed rattled even my street-hardened nerves, but I refused to relent. You know how stubborn I can be, and I saw something in Sasuke's eyes that told me he wouldn't have the guts to physically bully a woman. I decided that _I_ would be the bully. I would bully him in ways only a woman can.

Using our close contact to my advantage, I looked up at him through my eyelashes. Remember the old tricks? The partially lowered eyelids, half open mouth framed by plump and inviting lips? Oh yeah, I used them all. The guy stood rigged as I slowly moved my lips toward him. I had to hold onto him so I could raise myself up to the perfect height, but I used this to my advantage and lightly rubbed my cheek up against his. I will admit I enjoyed this seduction way more than I should have. I had never willingly kissed a guy my own age at that point, let alone such a handsome one. Schoolgirl fantasies of stripping him down and having my way with him ran through my head, but I didn't let myself indulge. To be safe, I navigated my lips away from the course they were taking to his mouth. I chose to plant light, fleeting kisses up his jaw line and to his ear. I could feel his fingers gently gripping my sides. I felt my heart melt a little at the touch, but I pressed onward with my goal. When I got to his ear, I whispered in a husky voice (that was more involuntarily husky than I care to admit), "I said, 'See you later, asshole.'" Before he regained his senses, I grabbed the money from his hand, unlocked the door, and sped down the hallway, away from his room.

I stayed in the hotel that night. The warmth of the hallways and rooms was so much better than the chill of the sidewalk. I made a point to stay away from the floor where Sasuke was, even hours after he should have left. Luckily for me, there was a bachelor party in the basement, full of loud, horny slobs willing to pay big for sex. Some even passed out long enough for me to steal extra cash from their wallets. I knew "Father" was going to be mad at me for leaving my spot, but I also knew that the amount of profit I was making would be more than enough to lessen his rage.

I was at the bus stop, counting out my earnings, when a luxurious sports car pulled up in front of me. A very familiar-looking sports car. Indeed, when the window rolled down, I saw Sasuke. A very pissed Sasuke, to be exact. The rage on his face was somewhat akin to the desire that had been shown earlier. If anything, the look made him all the more handsome.

"Get in," he said. I had a moment of de-ja vu and wondered if those were the only words he knew to get a woman into his car.

"What if I refuse?" I said. To be honest, I really wanted to go into the car. It looked so warm and I had a weird desire to apologize to him. However, I knew what I had done could be the basis, in certain types of minds, to go all "serial killer" on someone's ass. Totally out there, I know, but Jack the Ripper liked prostitutes. I wasn't taking any chances. Sasuke had obviously stayed until I left. An action like that bordered on obsessive stalking.

Sasuke sighed, an obvious testament to my stubbornness. "The buses in this part of the city don't resume running until five a.m. tomorrow. You'll freeze to death waiting for one."

"Um, it's after midnight, so technically the buses don't resume until five a.m. _today. _I've done a lot worse for sleeping than a bus stop. Besides, if you're so worried about my health, I'm sure I can find a way to get a free hotel room. There's some party guys back there that would surely give me a room. I'd just have to-"

"Look," Sasuke had evidentially given up on being mad. He had now adopted some type of negotiation tone. The thought popped into my head that he used it to discuss details with businessmen, even though I didn't know if he was, indeed, a businessman. "I don't care if you end up frozen, but I know people who do. People who would end up killing me if you turned into a Bitchsicle. So, get in the car and don't complain."

Well the argument was interesting, even if the way in which he presented it wasn't too satisfactory. I wondered who these people were and why they cared so much about me. Maybe if I _did_ get into the car, I could grill Sasuke for information. Even if he _was_ a mass murderer, I could at least have an interesting close to my life. I figured that the Black Dahlia didn't get famous until after she was murdered. I could be just as (un)lucky.

I didn't find anything out during the trip, but I didn't die either. He dropped me off at the usual curb and drove away. I thought I'd never see him after that. I didn't mention him to you because, well, I was feeling a little selfish and possessive. Plus, I thought that the other girls might want to steal him away if he ever did come back. After a few of his visits, I began to feel guilty for not telling you. I'm now glad that I waited because of what eventually happened.

As you know, Sasuke came to visit me more than once. He began to come every week, exact same day, and exact same time. After some careful manipulation on my part, he told me that his name was Sasuke, but didn't give me a last name. I had to do some detective work for that part. I knew I had seen him somewhere, but it wasn't until my subscription for Medical Monthly arrived that I remembered exactly where. In an old copy of Medical Monthly, I found an article detailing a large donation made by the Uchiha family to the cancer wing of a hospital. Accompanying it was a picture showing Sasuke and another man, whom the caption identified as Itachi Uchiha. My mystery man was none other than Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke picked me up every week. I first found him to be cold, arrogant, and selfish, even if he was a babe. Over time, I don't know what happened, but I gradually began to fall in love with him. Under his arrogance, I discovered insecurity. His parents had died when he was very young and he was raised by an emotionally distant older brother. He was left to mature on his own with virtually no guidance, so it's no wonder some childish qualities got enhanced through adolescence.

My biggest mistake during all of this was talking about it to you. Not that I ever regret telling _you_, but some girl apparently overheard our conversations. One night, Sasuke told me that we had to leave right away. There was a danger in "Father" finding out and preventing the trip in a horrible way. Sasuke drove me to the house to get my stuff. You weren't there and I had only a few minutes to stay in the room, so I hastily scribbled out a note to you. I wish I could have said more, maybe explained every detail, but there was no way. I stuffed some things into a bag and ran out to the car.

Sasuke took me far away from Tokyo. We moved to Hong Kong, where he oversaw the start of a new branch of the Uchiha Corporation. A woman, named Tsunade, contacted me about a month or so after Sasuke and I moved. She said she had known my parents when I was little and wished to meet me. As it turns out, she was a highly skilled surgeon and began to tutor me after seeing my enthusiasm for her practice. With her help, and a lot of hard work, I was able to complete medical school in four years. She also revealed to me that she heard about my parents' deaths and set out to find me. She was the one who hired the organization to track me down. I couldn't believe her until the information was confirmed by Sasuke. I should maybe include that Sasuke proposed to me while we were living there.

About a month after graduation, Sasuke got a call from an informant back in Tokyo. One of the biggest names in prostitution had discovered a black market in Malaysia. This market paid for females to become a sort of "second wife" to customers. The positions would put any of the "wives" into dangerous positions, as they were usually kept so that no one knew they existed. It's a dangerous market, but it pays very well. The man got in touch with the other big names in Tokyo's red district, including "Father," and they figured out just how profitable selling some girls would be. The young, innocent, and hopeless ones were their first pick, but then they went on to talk about the older girls. The girls who had been in the business a long time. The worn out ones, the _old_ ones.

I thought of you. How could I not? We were sisters in that horrible place, and it killed me to leave you. I knew that awful man would sell you, so I talked to Sasuke. I managed to convince him to move back to Japan. He was apprehensive, but I wore him down by saying that the situation was as awful as if I was the one back there. He went back to his company's headquarters and I was offered a prestigious residency at a hospital here. The outward appearance was made to be a couple moving back for business ventures.

We used this image to remain inconspicuous while getting back in touch with Sasuke's contacts. The organization really is an awesome thing. I don't know too many details on it, but I know that these agents have saved many a girl from dire situations. During our four year exile, Sasuke had told me that Naruto, his friend in the agency, had asked for the help of Sasuke, an ordinary citizen, for my case. The purpose of the "missions" was to gain our trust so that we would go with them when the time came.

Your case was going to be precarious. With me already scooped up, any mystery guy in your life would need to be clever and be able to finish it within a relatively short period of time. For that, we needed Shikamaru. Shikamaru is the agency's best strategist, and I'm pretty sure he's their best ever. I've seen him in action a bit. It's crazy, really. He is able to manipulate almost any situation to his advantage, but he does so in such an inconspicuous manner. Chouji said that Shikamaru's been this way ever since they were little. Seemingly a step behind everyone, but really three steps ahead. So, we coaxed him into taking on the case. He was reluctant at first-something about an old partner-but eventually agreed to do it. Strange thing was that he seemed to catch interest after hearing your last name. I never got the chance to ask him about that. Maybe he'll tell me later.

From this point on, your guess is as good as mine as to what came about. Sasuke, being the over-protective brute of a lover that he is, wouldn't let me get wrapped too much into the investigation. I fought him, obviously, but he said that Shikamaru was to be trusted and that the added stress would only harm me. I thought, 'What does he know? Sakura Haruno can take _anything_,' but Sasuke has this certain bastardly way of being good at _persuasion_, if you get my meaning. I, however, managed to fool him. Oh, yes. Before we left the agency, I slipped a note to Shikamaru containing my address and asking him to send my updates periodically. You know what I got? Absolutely nothing. The whole investigation period, not even a single scrap of paper was sent my way. I had thought that Sasuke was interfering, and bitched him out more than once about it, but I later found out from Chouji that Shikamaru's defining characteristic, well before his high IQ, was his overwhelming sense of laziness. The jerk hadn't even had enough energy to lift up a pen and send a letter my way! I was dead-set on beating his ass, but he got lucky. The hospital got super busy and I was either working my own ass off, or passed out from exhaustion.

The very first thing I heard about your case was when Sasuke called me from the road. He was driving to the agency and had gotten a call about you. They were taking you to the building. You were _free_. I couldn't believe it at first. I was running on roughly five hours of sleep in a thirty-six hour time period. I thought that I had just fallen asleep in the hospital and was having an amazing dream Sasuke had to spend a few minutes convincing me of the reality of his call. I quickly got over my shock and grabbed my coat, all senses intending to bolt out of the hospital. I would've made it too if there suddenly hadn't been a slew of patients coming in at precisely the moment I stepped into the hallway. An abundance of patients and a shortage of doctors meant there was no way I was sneaking out. I was pulled over to help with a victim of a knife attack. I was ready to stab someone except, you know, the kid had already been stabbed. Nine times. By a six-inch blade. Not my best thought of the moment, but desperate times…

I was finally able to escape FOUR hours after the call. I forced myself to stop by the market and pick up a sandwich, lest I die from starvation. A can of that horrible processed fruit you used to like caught my attention, so I figured to buy a can or two, along with a bowl and utensils.

I rushed into the agency, half a sandwich jammed into my mouth, and demanded to know where you were. What I got was my fiancée pushing me down onto an office chair and telling me to be patient. I became so mad, but then he told me that you were getting some well-deserved rest. I called down. He also told me that I should think about resting too, but my adrenaline had kicked in and I was way too jittery to rest. I obtained a cup of coffee and Sasuke's sweatshirt and continued to wait. Eventually, I couldn't be patient anymore. I (selfishly) decided to wake you up, regardless of how tired you were.

Nerves took over as I stood in front of your door. What if you hated me from what I did all those years ago? What if you hated the agency? Oh, it was too much to bear. I clutched onto the fruit as if my life depended on it. The door opened and, well, you know the story from there.

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And the plot thickens (I hope)...For those of you who have asked me "Where's Shikamaru?!?!?!" (with every right to, of course!!!) I will promise you that he WILL be in the next chapter. Cross my heart, hope to die, if you catch me in a lie. I'll continue in my quest to answer every review. I managed to stick to it for last chapter! Woo! I love it when people write back. It makes my life a fraction of bit better. Haha. Also, I have thinking about getting a Beta. If anyone has any recommendations, please talk to me. I would prefer one who doesn't stick exclusively to Naruto, but also does some other major anime and branches out into Western cartoons. Thank you all!


	8. Files

I know it's been months (and months and months) but Real Life has been really kicking my ass. *Sigh*

Lately, I've been getting into dramas. There's SO many good ones out there. I recently finished "Oh! My Lady." It was really cute, but my favorite by far is "My Lovely Sam-soon." It's sooooooo good. It was pitched as "the Koren Bridget Jones" (I am obsessed with Bridget Jones, btw) but it was so different and so amazing. It's also the only drama where I didn't laugh out loud when they were speaking English, plus the actors actually fluctuated when speaking. Yay for them! Both dramas are available on Hulu, which is infinitely preferable to watching separate videos.

Oh! Thanks to everyone who reviewed. This story has over 100 review so far. Everyone who reads/likes this story is loved, no matter if you review or not!

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Ino looked down at Sakura's sleeping face. In the absence of light, she could barely make out the dark patches of skin under her friend's eyes. Sakura's story had lasted for a while and no amount of energy could have kept her up for much time past the end. Indeed, Sakura had started to drift off towards the end and each of her final sentences was punctuated with a large yawn. After the conclusion of her tale, Sakura had wanted to stay up with Ino and talk about everything. A minute or so in, Ino left for the bathroom and came back to find Sakura's form slumped across the bed, fast asleep. She sighed and pulled up the blankets.

Quietly, she walked over to the door, slipped on a pair of shoes, and snuck out. The light from the outside briefly illuminated the bed. Once outside, Ino gazed down the hall, trying to decide what to do. Many of the doors were closed and, she guessed, locked. Shino was still at his post. He quickly glanced up as she came out. The quiet of the hallway didn't last long; a loud male voice boomed from one of the open doorways. She reversed the layout of the hallway in her mind and realized that the room was the one Tenten had pulled Sasuke out of. There had been someone else in that room. Naruto! Yes, that was it. She figured the loud voice to be his. Even if Sasuke was in the room, he would have probably died before resorting to such a decibel. Tenten had said the Sasuke was helping Naruto pack. They might still need help packing, Ino reasoned, and it would give her something to do while she waited.

A few seconds passed before either of the men noticed her pausing at the doorframe. Sasuke was sitting at a large desk, sorting files into cardboard boxes. The bottom half of another man stuck out from behind a filing cabinet. Eventually, Sasuke looked up and saw her. "Hi," said Ino when she noticed him looking at her.

"Hey," he replied.

Her voice had caught the attention of the other man. He snapped back up, grinned, and walked over.

"Hey there! I'm Naruto." Every sentence of this new man's speech seemed punctuated with exclamation marks. His grin encompassed half his face. Ino couldn't remember ever seeing a smile so genuine and intoxicating. "You're Ino, right? Shikamaru's case? Aren't you also, like, Sakura's soul sister?" She nodded at the questions. "Jeez, you've got connections all over this place. She and this guy"-indicating Sasuke-"all totally lovey-dovey all the time. It's gross."

Sasuke shot him a look. Deadly intentions were implied. With a look that was only fractionally warmer, he turned back to Ino. "So, where exactly _is_ Sakura? I sent her to your room two hours ago."

"She fell asleep. I didn't want to disturb her, so I wandered a bit and ended up here. I was wondering if you guys needed any help cleaning up," replied Ino.

Sasuke hummed in response and glanced at the pile of yellow folders thoughtfully. One caught his interests. He reached over and handed it to Ino. She peeked at the top flap, labeled "Ring." Unwanted memories of the previous night popped up, so she squashed them and laid the folder at her side.

"Take that to Room Three and leave it on the desk," Sasuke ordered. "The door is probably closed, but it should be unlocked."

Ino nodded and left the room. The destination was located further down the hall, closer to the security booth than Naruto's room. She could make out the fuzzy shape of a person on the monitor behind Shino's head. He appeared to be unlocking the door to let them in.

She found the office, hoping the door was what Sasuke had said it to be. It was, and she flipped on the lights as she stepped in. The layout of the room was similar to Naruto's, but much less cluttered. The only object in it, besides the desk and metal filing cabinets, was an open box sitting on the desk. Ino walked over to it, set the file down, and turned to walk away. A flash of color from inside the box caught her attention and she turned back. On top of a box of various files and papers was a framed photograph. The bright color she had witnessed was a man's bright red hair. He stood next to another man with strange purple markings on his face. The second man had his arms wrapped around the redhead and a blonde woman. Ino gasped. The woman was the woman from the restaurant! Her hair was styled differently, and she wore the same type of loose, traditional robes as the men, but it was definitely the same woman.

"Hello?" A voice called from behind Ino. She quickly turned and discovered where it had come from. Sure enough, it was the woman from the picture and from the restaurant.

"Hi," Ino replied, rather weakly. "Um, Sasuke asked me to deliver that file to your office. Naruto had it."

A look of realization came over the woman's face. She walked over, past Ino, and picked up the file. "I swear," she said, "Every time Naruto picks something up, he accidentally grabs something else. Then he has to come back and pick up the correct one, but leaves the other file in his office. It's gotten so bad that the rest of us have to leave strictly confidential stuff in a separate cabinet, under lock and key. Honestly…" She had finished leafing through everything, so she looked back at Ino. Her brows knit together in confusion. "I'm sorry, but have we met? You look awfully familiar, but I just can't place you."

Ino wondered if she should reveal her name to the woman. In the city, an identity was a sacred thing, rarely given truthfully to strangers. However, as she thought about it, her name had been known by more strangers in the past day than at any other point in the recent past. Before going to the restaurant, she had never seen Chouji, Tenten, Sasuke, Naruto, or Shino before in her life, yet they all knew her. The woman seemed trustworthy enough. She was obviously trusted by this organization, or else she never would have been allowed in the building, let alone given her own office. She had also seemed on _rather_ good terms with Shikamaru. Maybe if Ino got her talking, she would reveal a little bit more information on him.

She introduced herself with her name. The woman again appeared puzzled, but looked as though she was thinking the name through. "Oh!" she finally said, "You're Shikamaru's girl. You were at dinner the other night."

Ino wondered how on Earth the woman could have known that she was at the restaurant. They had never made eye contact during the entire time that Ino had been watching her. And, if the woman knew about her, then there was a chance that Shikamaru also knew. Ino voiced her question.

The woman chuckled. "There are other ways to observe someone than just downright staring at them," she said. Ino blushed, realizing the woman must have been aware of her gaze. "Besides," the woman continued, "Shikamaru reserved that table only because he knew you were going to be there that night."

Ino stared at the woman. Of all the nerve, Shikamaru! "He proposed to you on a _stakeout_? I get that I'm some sort of case or mission and all, but did he really have to overlap business with something so _personal_?" Ino still felt angry and betrayed at the proposal, but she just couldn't overlook this crime against all womankind!

The woman now was the one staring. She looked at Ino with a horrified expression, as though a third arm had sprouted from Ino's head. "Whoa, wait a minute. You think Shikamaru and I are getting _married_?" She began laughing; huge, infrequent puffs of air sprouted from her chest in the most unladylike way possible. "Oh God, you think we're _engaged_?"

Ino was a little miffed at the woman's reaction. "But he gave you a ring! You got emotional!"

The woman had calmed herself. "Ring?" she asked. Realization then dawned on her. "Oh, you mean this." From her pocket, she produced the very same box that Ino had seen Shikamaru give to her. The woman opened it up and inside rested a masterpiece of priceless gems set in tarnished gold. It was absolutely beautiful and looked to be a hundred years old, at least. "This is a priceless family heirloom. It was stolen during a raid on our family house fifty years ago. My younger brother, Gaara, is the one getting married. I hired Shikamaru to track the ring down for the wedding. That whole emotional scene was just the product of too much wine and too little food. Alcohol tends to bring out my weepy side."

Ino felt around for the desk. Her legs were weak with such giant relief that she thought she may collapse. Shikamaru wasn't getting married! Even if he didn't feel that way about her, the lack of concrete evidence to support the other side didn't exist anymore. Her heart loosed a bit from the previous tightness.

However, one thing nagged at her mind. "If it's so valuable, how come you're just carrying your brother's ring in your pocket? Aren't you afraid that it'll get stolen again?"

The woman snorted, once again amused. "Please, no thief would stand a chance against me. And, once this gets into my brother's hands, I'd pity anyone who even _thinks_ about taking it away from him. Trust me, this ring will have a long time before it's stolen from our family again."

"Oh." Ino watched as the woman organized the contents of the box in order to accommodate the new folder. Once everything was set in place, the woman sealed the box with a lid and turned to Ino.

"I think that's it," she said, "But, before you go, I just have to say that, in all the years I've known Shikamaru, I've never seen him so dedicated to a case such as yours. That's quite a compliment, seeing as how he usually spends as little time as possible on his work."

Ino could feel the blood flow into her cheeks. She bowed her head, knowing it was a useless endeavor to try and hide from her companion's eagle eyes. The simple act of trying just made her feel better. "Um, thank you," she said. "I should be going now." She spoke as she retreated to the door. "Bye."

She stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. Before the door was completely shut, she heard the woman say "Bye Ino," from back in the room. Ino realized that she had never learned the woman's name.

How the hell did everyone here know who Ino was, but she knew absolutely nothing about anyone of them? Oh sure, Sakura had opened up and there had been pleasant conversations with Chouji and Shikamaru, but, in reality, she was just like a child to them: a fucking kid who got spoon-fed some information, but was deemed too naïve for the rest.

She _knew_ that she was working herself up, but damned if she was going to stop. Oh sure, this little…_thing_ had to keep some information private. They apparently thought they were some ultra-important special agency, but she deserved to know about herself. About why these people knew so fucking much about her life and she knew squat. She stomped down the hallway. Who gave a crap if it disturbed Shino? He could just deal with it.

She originally intended to go back to the room. Maybe she would wake up and interrogate Sakura a bit. One look at the exhausted woman would probably kill her resolve, but Ino chose to ignore the rational for the time being. She glanced at the light coming from Naruto's office. Naruto seemed like the person to let things slip, she mused. Sure, Sasuke would stop him form revealing too much, but every little bit counted.

She heard a door close behind her. She ignored it. Shino was probably just letting another "agent" into the building. Another person full of lies and a secret agenda. Joy, oh joy. Just what Ino needed.

What she didn't expect was to hear her name. It was softly spoken, barely above a whisper, but the empty hallway magnified it so it seemed like thunder when it reached her. She knew the voice, which didn't help. She had memorized every pitch, every fall, and every decibel of strength it held. The dual syllables of her name brushed against her cheek, a leaf blowing in the breeze, and sank under her skin. Equal parts summer wind and winter chill. Her anger had been whisked away. She clung desperately to the scraps, knowing that they would give her strength to walk away, to not turn around. Her efforts were in vain. The pieces were pulled out of her fingers; she watched them fly away, knowing she now had no excuse. Ino turned to face the man who had spoken her name. She turned to face Shikamaru.

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I'm trying to muster some hope about the timing of the next (and last) chapter! Hopehopehopehopehope


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